


Day 18: Emergency Room

by mrs_d



Series: Do What I Wantober 2020 [18]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hospitals, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27089272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: Four hours, fifty-two minutes, and eighteen seconds have passed since the doctors wheeled the urchin away with the promise that the procedure would be quick. But still they wait, with no word.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Mazikeen & Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)
Series: Do What I Wantober 2020 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947496
Comments: 11
Kudos: 172





	Day 18: Emergency Room

“Darling.”

“No.”

“If I could just—”

“No.”

“But you’re concerned.”

“Of course I am.”

“So, let me—”

 _“No,_ Lucifer.”

Lucifer huffs out a breath and slumps back into his overly-square, under-cushioned seat, heedless of the way his suit jacket is crumpled against the back. It’s probably already ruined; he’d been wearing it for close to twenty hours before this sweltering place forced him to take it off. 

He checks the clock on the wall again. Lucifer can be a patient Devil when he needs to be, but honestly, he’s at the end of his rope. Four hours, fifty-two minutes, and eighteen seconds have passed since the doctors wheeled the urchin away with the promise that the procedure would be quick. But still they wait, with no word.

He’s certain that the nurse at the front desk could provide an update about Beatrice’s condition. For some reason, Chloe won’t ask her, and she won’t let him do it either— even though he can tell from here that the nurse would be particularly susceptible to his charms. One smile from him would have her bending over backwards to find information, he’s sure, but Chloe won’t hear of it. 

The emergency room is full tonight, but Lucifer doesn’t miss it when Daniel returns from the men’s room. They lock eyes from across the expanse of beige chairs, but Daniel quickly looks away. They’ve reached a sort of uneasy peace, since his discovery of Lucifer’s true nature and the incident with the gun at the penthouse, but Dan still avoids any and all situations where they might be alone together. 

He’s not happy that Lucifer is here, of course. Lucifer isn’t sure whether that’s because it implies that Lucifer was in bed with Chloe — he wasn’t, they were still working — when the urchin took ill at one o’clock in the morning, or whether he would just rather the Devil not be involved with his personal life as well as his professional. It doesn’t really matter, in the end; Lucifer is here, and he would very much like to put his skillset to good use while he is.

“Perhaps Daniel could—” he begins anew.

“No,” Chloe says again. 

“But Detective—”

“The poor woman is busy enough,” Chloe cuts him off, but he notices the way she’s not looking at him. She’s staring at the blank wall opposite them, her eyes glazed and unseeeing. “They said they’d let us know, they’ll let us know. There’s nothing more we can do until then. It’s out of our hands.”

Lucifer frowns. He’s about to argue, again, that it doesn’t have to be, that he can intervene, but Maze’s arrival interrupts him. 

She bursts into the room like a— well, like a demon out of Hell, he supposes. Her expression is feral, and several heads turn as she stalks towards Lucifer and Chloe. One woman even tugs her small child away from Maze’s path, but Maze doesn’t notice. 

“Where is she?” she demands. 

“Surgery,” Chloe replies at once. She pats the seat beside her. “Sit down.”

Maze blinks, taken aback. Her eyes cut to Lucifer. “We’re just sitting here?” she says incredulously. “Why are we just sitting here? We should be doing something.”

Chloe sighs, and Lucifer gets to his feet. “Let’s walk,” he tells Maze, to spare Chloe having to go over it all again. “I’d very much like a cigarette. Will you be all right for a moment, Detective?”

Chloe glances behind him, in Daniel’s direction, and she nods. Lucifer clasps her shoulder, then grabs his jacket and nods towards the door, following Maze out the way she came in. 

“I was in Portland when I got your text,” she says. They cross the parking lot towards the gazebo where smokers are allowed to congregate. “Had to use your black card to get a last-minute flight, hope that’s still okay.”

“That’s why I gave it to you,” Lucifer replies, unconcerned. He extracts the silver-plated case from his pocket and opens it. He puts a cigarette between his lips, then turns the case in Maze’s direction.

“They only had first class left,” she adds, taking one. Then she scoffs, shaking her head. “Nothing like sipping champagne at 35,000 feet while your favorite kid is maybe dying.”

“Apparently, they have it under control,” Lucifer says. He lights up and inhales. The first breath is always bitter. “Apparently, this kind of thing is quite common in children.”

He hands her the lighter, and Maze, who doesn’t smoke as much as he does, shudders through her first inhalation. “But it _can_ kill her,” she says.

Lucifer takes another drag and nods without a word. They smoke in silence for a few minutes, watching as an ambulance pulls into the ER entrance, casting the building in bursts of blue and red light. 

“How’s Chloe?” Maze asks. 

Lucifer shrugs. “About as well as can be expected, I suppose. I think she blames herself, for not knowing sooner, but she had no way of guessing that a mild fever this morning and not wanting to eat dinner this evening could turn into— well, this,” he concludes, waving his cigarette at the hospital. “I told her as much, of course, but....”

“I’ll tell her, too,” says Maze. 

They share a look, and he knows they’re of one mind on this: they’ll do anything to keep Chloe from falling into a guilt spiral with potentially eternal consequences. He nods, grateful.

“And she doesn’t want to bother the nurse to ask for an update,” he adds.

“Then you should do it.” Lucifer raises his eyebrows at her. “Oh,” she says, catching on. “She doesn’t want you to.” 

“Got it in one,” says Lucifer, through a cloud of smoke.

Maze sighs. “What a frustrating human.”

Lucifer has to laugh at that. “Extremely,” he agrees. He pulls one last drag from his cigarette, then deposits the butt in the cylindrical ashtray beside him. As he does so, his phone vibrates in his pocket. 

He pulls it out, finds a text from Chloe. _Surgery success. See her in 15. Doc says immed family only - talk nurse into it if you/M want to join._

Lucifer chuckles again and shows Maze the text. “Great,” she says, quickly disposing of her cigarette, too. “I’ll fake marry Dan right now if I have to.”

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to _that,”_ Lucifer mutters, following her across the parking lot again.

He pauses in front of the glass doors, however, to straighten up his appearance. If he’s going to make a deal, after all, he’s got to look the part. And Beatrice is worth any price. 


End file.
